A novel microfluidic platform for size and deformability based separation and the subsequent molecular characterization of viable circulating tumor cells.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) were introduced as biomarkers more than 10 years ago, but capture of viable CTCs at high purity from peripheral blood of cancer patients is still a major technical challenge. Here, we report a novel microfluidic platform designed for marker independent capture of CTCs. The Parsortix™ cell separation system provides size and deformability-based enrichment with automated staining for cell identification, and subsequent recovery (harvesting) of cells from the device. Using the Parsortix™ system, average cell capture inside the device ranged between 42% and 70%. Subsequent harvest of cells from the device ranged between 54% and 69% of cells captured. Most importantly, 99% of the isolated tumor cells were viable after processing in spiking experiments as well as after harvesting from patient samples and still functional for downstream molecular analysis as demonstrated by mRNA characterization and array-based comparative genomic hybridization. Analyzing clinical blood samples from metastatic (n = 20) and nonmetastatic (n = 6) cancer patients in parallel with CellSearch(®) system, we found that there was no statistically significant difference between the quantitative behavior of the two systems in this set of twenty six paired separations. In conclusion, the epitope independent Parsortix™ system enables the isolation of viable CTCs at a very high purity. Using this system, viable tumor cells are easily accessible and ready for molecular and functional analysis. The system's ability for enumeration and molecular characterization of EpCAM-negative CTCs will help to broaden research into the mechanisms of cancer as well as facilitating the use of CTCs as "liquid biopsies."

Chip PCR. I. Surface passivation of microfabricated silicon-glass chips for PCR.

The microreaction volumes of PCR chips (a microfabricated silicon chip bonded to a piece of flat glass to form a PCR reaction chamber) create a relatively high surface to volume ratio that increases the significance of the surface chemistry in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We investigated several surface passivations in an attempt to identify 'PCR friendly' surfaces and used those surfaces to obtain amplifications comparable with those obtained in conventional PCR amplification systems using polyethylene tubes. Surface passivations by a silanization procedure followed by a coating of a selected protein or polynucleotide and the deposition of a nitride or oxide layer onto the silicon surface were investigated. Native silicon was found to be an inhibitor of PCR and amplification in an untreated PCR chip (i.e. native slicon) had a high failure rate. A silicon nitride (Si(3)N(4) reaction surface also resulted in consistent inhibition of PCR. Passivating the PCR chip using a silanizing agent followed by a polymer treatment resulted in good amplification. However, amplification yields were inconsistent and were not always comparable with PCR in a conventional tube. An oxidized silicon (SiO(2) surface gave consistent amplifications comparable with reactions performed in a conventional PCR tube.

Chip PCR. II. Investigation of different PCR amplification systems in microbabricated silicon-glass chips.

We examined PCR in silicon dioxide-coated silicon-glass chips (12 microl in volume with a surface to volume ratio of approximately 17.5 mm(2)/microl) using two PCR reagent systems: (i) the conventional reagent system using Taq DNA polymerase; (ii) the hot-start reagent system based on a mixture of TaqStart antibody and Taq DNA polymerase. Quantitative results obtained from capillary electrophoresis for the expected amplification products showed that amplification in microchips was reproducible (between batch coefficient of variation 7.71%) and provided excellent yields. We also used the chip for PCR directly from isolated intact human lymphocytes. The amplification results were comparable with those obtained using extracted human genomic DNA. This investigation is fundamental to the integration of sample preparation, polynucleotide amplification and amplicate detection on a microchip.